Sony Abandons Copy-Control Music CDs

Sony's music unit is abandoning its CDs that use built-in technology that limits copying them, after pushing the program for two years.

Such CDs let users copy their music once for free onto a personal computer, but use the Internet to charge a fee for subsequent copying of the same disk.

However, Sony Music Entertainment has announced it will stop publishing them, mainly because its message against illegally copying CDs for uses such as in file-sharing over the Internet has widely sunk in, the company said.

Sony Music has learned that only a small part of the population illegally copy CDs, company spokeswoman Kimiko Ohashi said Monday.